As the founder of Drop In & Decorate: Cookies for Donation, a nonprofit organization that encourages people to play with squeeze bottles of icing and sprinkles, and even permits taste-testing and finger-licking afterwards, I’ve learned a few things about having fun while doing good:

Volunteering should be fun.

Volunteering at work makes work more fun.

Employees who have more fun work harder, and are happier at their jobs.

Employees who volunteer as a team, and have fun doing it, work better as a team.

Everyone loves cookies.

Drop In & Decorate® events bring people together to decorate and donate cookies to nonprofit agencies in their own community that address the basic human needs of food or shelter.

BAKE, DECORATE, DONATE.

Co-workers bake cookies (at home or at work, depending on the facilities available), and get together to decorate the cookies with bright colored icing. The decorated cookies go to food pantries, emergency and domestic violence shelters, Ronald McDonald Houses, and agencies providing food and shelter to families and children. Smiles for everyone!

Lucia Watson organizes an annual event at her workplace. “Every December,” she explains, “my co-workers and I decorate dozens of cookies for donation with our clients at a neuro-rehab facility. Six or eight colleagues volunteer to bake a batch or two of cookies. In fact, they start asking in the early Fall, ‘Are we going to decorate cookies again?’ Each year it gets easier to organize, as staff are eager to be a part of this valued tradition.”

It’s a great workplace community service activity (see #5, above): you can stop by and decorate a few cookies on your lunch hour, and you get to eat any broken cookies for dessert.

HOW TO GET STARTED

To get started planning your own workplace event, download the free how-to guide on our site. Then, look in Tips and Techniques for three short articles about how to organize an event at work: what you’ll need, how to connect with an agency for donation, wrapping and packing, and more.

Ted Chaloner owns a recruiting firm in Boston’s South End. Last year his employees joined members of the Boston Ballet (also South End based) in an event that decorated cookies for a neighborhood domestic violence shelter. “More and more, he says, “companies are realizing that the opportunities we all have to connect, collaborate, and make a difference in our world have never been greater. However, it can't be only on Facebook and Twitter. Drop In & Decorate – and the simple gift of handmade cookies – connects people with people. It can open the door to greater understanding of the community’s needs and a beneficial relationship between companies and their nonprofit neighbors.”

For an example of the long-term bonds that can form, please read this 2008 interview with a volunteer who hosts workplace events in Champaign, Illinois. Jenna has now organized half a dozen events, all benefiting the same local men’s shelter.

For questions, advice, or help finding a recipient agency near your workplace, please email to me (lydia AT dropinanddecorate DOT org), or contact us through our web site .

Now, really, could workplace community service be any sweeter? (See #5, above.)

IBM does it. Home Depot and British Airways do it. Even smaller, lesser known companies like Cabot Corporation and Two Men and a Truck do it. They all encourage their employees to participate in some sort of community service. Some encourage individuals and others encourage group activities. Either way, these companies have learned that there are benefits of employee volunteering and workplace community service.

In my research on the topic I have found several publications that provide imporant research into the topic. These documents are quite long and can be quite boring in places. However if you are a person who is looking to start an employee volunteer or community service program for you may want to download and reference these because they present wonderful business cases.

Its a perfect teambuilding exercise: Teambuilding gets such a bad rap. Automatically we think of ropes courses, goofy trust exercises, and never-ending breakout and small group sessions. However, community service projects appeal to employees' good nature and willingness to help another in need. While working on said project with colleagues, employees can complete many teambuilding objectives without the need to scale some huge tree and trust that someone will catch them if they jump off or fall off (whatever the case may be).

Employee Retention: Research (from above) indicates that companies that have community service activities retain more employees.

Improved morale: There is no better feeling than helping someone who needs it. This positive feeling, when associated with the workplace, can improve workplace and employee morale.

Its easy and inexpensive: You don't have to sign up to build a house or a playground. You can do something simple like collect books for an afterschool program, collect school supplies for foster kids, have a food drive, or partner with a meals on wheels group and offer to clean the gutters of the homes of two families in need.

It doesn't have to take a lot of time. Many activities, especially fundraising for a cause, can be done over a lunch hour.

Dollar Philanthropy has a whole category that will help you come up with ideas suitable for workplaces. Explore. Also feel free to comment or send me an email (carol at drivinging in traffic dot com) telling me about your great idea-- pictures welcome too!

So now get busy! The holidays will be upon us soon and people love to help people during the holidays. Start planning now!

This morning I saw that parts of New York have gotten 30, 40, 50 inches of snow. The good news it that it offered me some perspective on the cold weather we are getting here... afterall, it could be worse. However, when it gets cold like this, I often dust off my crockpot and see how many days in a row I can use it. I love soup and I'm thankful that my family does too as it sure does make life easier.

Given the tradition rotten weather, it should be no surprise that someone was smart enough to make January National Soup Month. So today's post is about how this month's honorary cuisine can change your corner of the world.

1. The holidays have depleted the food supplies at many food banks. One thing you could do is to assemble the ingredients needed to make your favorite soup and donate them to local food pantry. The Feeding America website can help you find a food bank in your area.

1.1 If the food bank will accept assembled meal boxes, consider including a recipe card and note of encouragement for the meal recipient.

1.2 Consider having a soup drive at work, church, or other social group.

2. Have a "SouperBowl" party where your friends bring soup or chili ingredients that can be donated to a food pantry.

2.1 Have "The Best Soup/Chili Cookoff" at your party or workplace. Ask people to bring entries into the competition AND bring the canned goods/ingredients for a family in need. (Don't forget the recipe card).

3. Women's Bean Project in Colorado is one of my favorite nonprofits. I have written about them before. Since 1989, WBP has been helping women break the cycle of poverty and unemployment through their job readiness and life skills
program that offers employment in their gourmet food and jewelry production
business. Women come with the goal of transforming their lives and
moving toward self sufficiency. I have a few friends who always expect their holiday gift to come from them.

In January, WBP is having a special on their soup mixes. Each mix is $5. The 10 Bean and Black Bean are my favorites. I also love their fair trade coffees. So.....consider purchasing a few for a warm cozy meal for your family. You'll be able to eat a great meal and help a woman move toward a new life. Click here to order.

4. Volunteer at a Soup Kitchen. Volunteer Match is a website that can help you locate opportunities in your area. You can also contact your local food bank. They will likely have a list of places and organizations that feed the homeless.

Thanks to Basheertome for the soup photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/basheertome/2081791355/

Times are tough for everyone! Many are being tempted to cut back on their giving activities. That includes companies who are trying to make ends meet and trying to avoid the next round of lay offs. It is especially bad in my home state of GA where the current unemployment rate is 10+%. All this comes at a time when the need is the greatest.

A while back I wrote a post on Meal Baskets for Families in Need as a good way for companies to make a difference in the community. Well... now is the time for companies to start planning for their holiday giving.

Turn the 3:00 Munchies into a Fundraising Opportunity

Today's idea is to help fund these efforts in these tight times. My idea is to have a bake sale to raise funds for those holiday turkeys, gift trees and extraneous supplies that go with those holiday giving programs.

What you need:

4 or 5 fellow employees to make one batch of cookies or brownies.Ziplock Bags or Clear Plastic Wrap (to wrap up single servings of the items to be sold)Cash box with change2 volunteers to man the sale table for a set period of timeFlyers (Download Bake sale flyer or make up one of your own)

The Holiday season is rapidly approaching. This is the time I usually think about single parent families and people having a hard time making ends meet. Then I just want to slap myself.

So while I post this workplace philanthropy idea now, I would encourage all to be better than me and to think about these families throughout the year, not just at holiday time. Afterall, there are people everyday that go to bed hungry-- not just at holiday time.

A successful Meal Basket event can be divided into three stages.

Stage 1: Locating and gaining information about needy families in your area.Teaming up with local service organizations that assist families in need is the best way of locating and understanding the needs of certain families in your area. In many cases the service organizations will want to maintain the confidentiality of the families they serve. As such, you can deliver your baskets to the organization and they will be responsible for making sure the family gets the items. Important questions to ask the service organization include:

How many people are in the family?

What are the ages of the people in the family?

Are there any allergies of which you need to be aware?

Does the family have an operational kitchen in which to prepare a meal? (some people have difficulty paying for utilities or may be living out of a shelter or travel trailer)

Stage 2: Gathering up the items for the meal basketBased on the information learned about the families/people for whom you will collect items, figure out a menu that they will enjoy. I've prepared some menu ideas and ingredients lists if you need help (see end of post for downloadable document). Depending on your family you may want to gather items to provide multiple modest meals rather than one huge one.

Once the menus have been determined, compose a list of items you want people to bring in and distribute the list. The perishable items on the menu provide people an opportunity to donate money toward grocery store gift cards. The combination of needs really eliminates any excuse for people not to participate.

Stage 3: Assembling the baskets/boxes and delivery

Once the items are gathered, the baskets/boxes will need to be assembled to make sure that each box has the appropriate items for the menu you've selected. Depending on the size of the families you are preparing for, the size of the boxes will differ.

Depending on the organization with whom you are working, you can also put in an encouraging message or card.

Also consider buying soups and chili mixes from one of the DP highlighted nonprofits: Women's Bean Project It would be double good for the money... you purchase what you need and a good cause gets income to help them change women's lives in Denver.

Summer is here. My thoughts go to homemade ice cream... specifically Peach Homemade Ice Cream. MMMMMMMMMM!!! Just the thought of it brings to mind sitting under a shady tree or on a front porch rocking chair shoveling spoonfuls of cold, refreshing tasty goodness into my mouth.

So why not take an hour or so and create a relaxing, refreshing moment at your workplace and generate some much needed money for a good cause.

Here's How it Works

Recruit individuals to participate in "The Best Ice Cream in All the World" Contest. Ideally, these people would have those new countertop ice cream makers. Yes they are small, but they usually make the ice cream really quickly. Have each person make one to two batches of the ice cream. The key to success is to make sure no one brings in bought ice cream. This isn't a contest between Dairy Queen, Brusters, and Carvel.

Co-workers who only want to eat ice cream donate $5 to be able to be the Judges of the contest.

The person who is judged to have the "best ice cream in all the world" is given a prize.

Things You Will Need

Conference room or large space where the ice cream contestants can be set up.

Condiment cups and spoons

Trash can and Trash Bags

Jimmies, sprinkles and other things to dress up the ice cream (optional)

A Prize for the winner (perhaps a $25 gas card, a week of dressing down, a reserved parking space for a week). It doesn't have to be anything expensive, but the bigger deal you make of it at first, the more likely that people will participate the next time.

Ballots for Voting and Vote box

Flyers and information about the cause/nonprofit organization to whom you will be donating.

Extra Idea:If the winner agrees, people can purchase the winning recipe for the ice cream for an extra $1.

If you try this, let me know how you did. Also if you have idea on how to make this idea better, please leave a comment!

Recently, I added a new category designed to help give ideas of ways that workplaces can become more involved in meeting some needs within their communities. Initially, the goal of this category is to highlight ways that employers can develop one-off opportunities for their employees to band together to do good in the community--- ideally, without tapping significantly into corporate profits.

Today's idea is to hold a corporate wide baby shower to help families with small children who are having difficulty making ends meet. The goal is to collect items that can be donated to local food pantries that can be distributed to those who need them. Items that can be collected include:

diapers

formula

wipes

baby food & cereal

juice

children's books

small stuffed animals

Now--- I admit--- this idea seems to appeal only to the females in the office--- however, men can be enticed to participate by including some opportunities for competition--- with appropriate prizes offered to the winners. Games include: speed diapering contest, Printable contests(Famous TV Fathers, Match TV children and parents to their TV Families, Daddy's Little Champion... a sports jargon quiz, raffle tickets), Name that Tune (instructions here), Office Baby Stroller Olympics (instructions here). Participation is always better when there are prizes--- so be sure to get ones that will appeal to everyone and need not maintain the baby theme.

Now-- to find an organization to which the items can be donated. Usually this is easy--- someone in the group usually knows of a worthy organization that can distribute the goods. However, America's Second Harvest has a "Find a Food Bank" tool that will help you find an organization in your community.

While CECP focues on encouraging large corporation to develop philanthropic intiatives, endeavors and huge strategic giving programs, I want to emphasize that philanthropic efforts of smaller companies can make a difference too (especially to small and mid-sized nonprofit organizations).

Workplace Philanthropy Does Not Have To Come Out Of Corporate Profits

With that said, I want to announce a new category here at DP--- Workplace philanthropy. Here the focus will be how ANY company and ANY employee can collaborate with the goal of giving back to the community around them. In this category, I will post information and ideas to help DP readers employed by smaller companies dip their foot in doing good for the community around them. I encourage people to leave their own idea, experiences, triumphs, bumps in the road and successes to this series via comments--- in hope of it becoming a resource and encouragement for those investigating how to start these types of endeavors.

To start, here are a few "first steps" that can be an entry into a workplace "do good" program.

Identify employees that are actively involved and engaged in nonprofit organization or community improvement efforts (volunteers, donors, and advisors). Invite several of these individuals to develop a committee to investigate how the company can use it's strengths and talents to help the community.

Develop a list nonprofits in your community (Network for Good is a good resource for this) where your organization is uniquely positioned to help. Brainstorm on how the company can help 2-3 of these organizations.

Buy some cookies and cupcakes and invite representatives from local nonprofits in for a volunteer drive during lunch. Focus on education and refrain from fundraising during this event. Don't forget to take time to network with the nonprofit representatives.